North London Mums is the place for everything of interest to North London Mums and North London Dads. We want to help other parents to find the best activities to do with their families, the best shops and websites to visit, and the most child friendly restaurants to eat in. We believe in supporting local businesses and other mumpreneurs and in building communities.

North London Mums GET FIT!!!

This week, in North London Mums mission to get fit, we look at mummy/buggy exercise groups, and tell you all about our experience of trying out Pushy Mothers.

One of the hardest things to do after you have had a baby is lose baby weight. We've all been there- in my case it turns out that the baby was not, indeed, made of cake and that there is a certain amount of work to be done to shed 9 months worth of indulgence. Not only that, once you have had a baby its very difficult to find the time/energy to actually do any exercise. This is where mum/buggy/fit groups come in.
A popular group is Pushy Mothers, which offers two exercise classes- Buggy Workout and Pushy Mothers on the Run. Buggy Workout is a one hour guided walk
with a qualified instructor which incorporates a wide variety of
postnatal specific exercises into a comprehensive workout. Pushy Mothers on the Run is for mums, whose babies are nine months old or more, who wish to pick up the pace of their exercise regime. Pushy Mothers has classes across North London including Highbury, Alexandra Palace and Hampstead Heath, Kenwood, Highgate and Golders Hill.

This North London Mum tried out the class offered at Hampstead Heath. I definitely enjoyed the hour. The class was small and friendly, and I felt I had a good work-out. The class is structured to include stretching, speedwalking (walk don't run!) and some resistance work such as lunges, squats and bench press ups. It was also, quite simply, good to get some fresh air and chat to some other mums. I felt slightly that I was transported back to the days of school gym classes, but frankly after 9 months of indulgence that's no bad thing. There was a strong emphasis on posture (very important), and getting the height of the buggy right- I would say that I felt a bit of pressure that I had the wrong (too low) buggy but the advice was sound. There's also lots of flexibility for baby crying etc which is good as particularly when you are a new mum, the biggest chalenge of all can be getting about and about with a new baby for more than 10 minutes. If you are a second or third time mum you can bring older children with too.

Pushy Mothers is a good exercise resource even if you can't make a class. They have teamed up with Maclaren to offer a 6 week "Stroll Back to Shape" workout which you can find on You Tube. There is even a workout album- the Pushy Mothers Buggy Workout Album which you can download from iTunes. It offers an hour of motivating and uplifting music
plus expert exercise advice- a great idea.
Finally, Pushy Mothers support the "Push Don't Rush" campaign- encouraging mums to take their time to get back into shape and not be pressurised by media images- a campaign that North London Mums think is really important.

If this sounds like your kind of thing, then there are also a number of other organisations doing similar classes and so wherever you are in North London, there should be a class for you nearby: